Word: pryor
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...just one of hundreds of horror stories that taxpayers can tell about the heavy-handed tactics of the Government's tax collectors. With the dreaded April 15 filing deadline approaching, Congress is considering bills that would ensure greater protection of taxpayers, including a measure sponsored by Senator David Pryor, an Arkansas Democrat, that has come to be known as the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights. While no one denies that the IRS should be tough on tax cheats, critics charge that the agency is often too quick to seize property, sometimes moves on the basis of flimsy evidence, and frequently does...
...Under Pryor's Senate bill, the IRS would have to notify taxpayers of their rights in writing before they were audited or questioned. Citizens would have the right to sue for damages if the IRS made an unreasonable collection. And before seizing taxpayers' property, the IRS would first have to send out a written notice and then wait 30 days. Another reform in the bill would give new authority to the ombudsman within the IRS to issue "taxpayers' assistance orders." These could help prevent the IRS from collecting taxes in ways that create substantial hardships for taxpayers...
...Lawrence Gibbs admits to some problems with tax collection but opposes the bill on the ground that the agency can correct any abuses internally. He points out that some of the measures in the proposed law, like the call for clear publications listing taxpayers' rights, have already been adopted. Pryor praises Gibbs for his efforts but says internal reform of the IRS can go only so far: "Gibbs has the same problem as Gorbachev. He is fighting with his own entrenched bureaucracy that is reluctant to give up power...
Meanwhile, Reynolds and Pryor kept making movies, but no one paid much attention. (Remember Malone? Critical Condition?) Reynolds occupied himself as director at his dinner theater in Jupiter, Fla., and as executive producer of the TV game show Win, Lose or Draw. Pryor retreated into the shadows of his fading celebrity. Both stars made bigger news appearing with Johnny Carson or Barbara Walters to refute stories that they were ill with AIDS. Ringwald switched mentors, leaving John Hughes, who had made her a star with Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink, for Warren Beatty. It didn't work. Their film...
...that the big Christmas films have made their mint, each of these former reliables tiptoes into town with a new movie designed not to stir a sensation but to fill booking dates. Pryor's film, Moving, is a comedy about a mass-transit engineer who loses his job, relocates to the Idaho ruburbs and declares war on his "neighbor from hell" (Randy Quaid). Among the cast are < Saturday Night Live's Dana Carvey, SCTV's Dave Thomas and the World Wrestling Federation's King Kong Bundy. Behind the camera is Alan Metter, who directed Rodney Dangerfield's 1986 hit Back...